Sebastian Scotney writes about jazz. He is often a sitter-in on clarinet or sax at London jazz clubs. He has also been a professor at the Royal College of Music. http://londonjazz.blogspot.com

Threat to Mandelson: if you attack peer-to-peer filesharing, we will wage digital warfare against you

Hannah Nicklin describes herself as "a brightly coloured playwright, tech-enthusiast, blogger and academic". Among her interests are "the democratising power of the wiki-ethic". And she is a strong defender of the contested Amendment 138/46 to the European Union Telecoms Package, which declares internet access as a fundamental right.

She has just written an open letter to Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, who has been considering legislation that would block the internet accounts of copyright violaters. And she's not exactly in a mood to pull her punches:

"You seem to be so eager for the Royal Mail to modernise, I wonder why you don’t see it equally as important for the music industry to do so? … Three Strikes [a proposed account-blocking Bill already enacted in France] will not work. Because we will not allow it to. No one will.

"Aside from the impossibility of monitoring and prosecuting all (let’s call non-profiteering sharers ‘domestic’) p2p filesharers, we will stop you from penalising any of them. If you begin to cut off people’s internet access, then everyone who can afford to do so will set up alternative unsecured wireless networks across the country.

"If you aim to track torrent usage, we will proliferate details on how to obscure or re-route your IP address. If you shut down those sites, we will use private chat to discuss what we want, and private cloud storage systems, drop boxes, to share content.

"We will rename files, disguise track identites with a couple of bytes worth data, break meta-data, and come up with new ways of encrypting our actions. The industry will not only lose out on ‘sales’ but valuable usage figures too.

"You are attempting to solve a digital problem using analogue solutions. We are open source, we are anonymous, and we are everywhere. Don’t fight us, don’t push, help dying industries reform, and remarket themselves in a sustainable way."

Feisty stuff.

Sadly, I doubt if the colourful Hannah and the equally colourful Peter will ever meet. I'm guessing that Hannah's private yacht is probably not moored in the limpid waters of the Aegean.